General tips for customer communication on a project
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Throughout any project, big or small, you'll need to talk to your customers along the way. Here are some great tips to making sure your communication is as effective and painless as possible.
- Determine which family member is the point person for the project. Often you'll find that the person organising it isn't the person making the decisions, so try to communicate with the decision maker.
- Let the customer know when they can expect to talk to you again. So for example, if you've called to book the project start date in for a mutually agreeable time, tell the customer that you'll also call the day before to confirm any last minute details.
- When using email communication, keep past emails below your most recent email by forwarding past emails, so the entire communication history is visible each time the customer receives and email from you.
- Keep your communication tone consistent. If you're emailing, use the same tone from the beginning to the end - don't start very formal and become casual later on or vice versa. Changes in tone usually make people uncertain.
- If you're dealing with more than one customer (for example when partners both have a hand in the project), don't play one off against each other by claiming that 'your husband agreed'. This is super-dangerous territory - you can be sure that they won't discuss everything and be completely on the same page, but you can also be sure that if you pass blame it's going to put your business in a bad light.
- Always communicate through the same person (or maximum two people). If your company is large and you have various team members in the project, try to designate one person the customer relationship manager.
- Communicate well internally - make sure your message to the customer is consistent.
Other articles of interest
Writing a professional business email
Having a great telephone conversation with your customer
Getting internal communications right in your business
Customer communication guidelines - making a service promise
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